


what we call fate, what we can't deny

by halfalump



Category: Pod Save America (RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, M/M, Mentions of Forced Prostitution, Possible Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 13:39:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14166042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfalump/pseuds/halfalump
Summary: don't you dare look out your window, darling everything's on fire





	what we call fate, what we can't deny

Tommy realizes he’s too drunk to just turn up at Lovett’s door after the seventh time his neck refuses to hold his head upright. But he’s made the journey to the building at the east side of The Capital, and navigated up the thirteen floors on basically muscle memory, so he just bows his crown against the mahogany, forehead digging into the brass knocker while he knocks, or more accurately slams, at the door with his palm. Lovett answers looking as schlubby and sloppy as always. His hair in is its usual state of disaster and his cardigan is a different color of blue than his shirt. He’s wearing his glasses, something he’s taken to doing a couple of years ago, when his image as a mischievous imp started to wane with the appearance of crow’s feet. He wears a good image of an aloof genius, Tommy thinks. He knows it was painstakingly cultivated, carefully considered, but Lovett makes it look effortless, and after a night spent with people wearing extravagant clothes that look like they’re meant to swallow the wearer whole, he’s a vision of comfort.

Tommy had fallen with the opening of the door, and he can’t help the lopsided smile that escapes when Lovett just lurches forward to catch him.

“Oh-ohh-kay.” he says, strong arms snaked under Tommy’s shoulders to keep him upright. He’s shorter than Tommy, something Tommy always gives him shit for, so Tommy’s legs still buckle, Lovett’s strength hardly doing anything to keep them upright.

“This…” Lovett says, dragging Tommy, stumbling, into the quarters, ”is why I make sure I am never the guy you want at any Capital parties.”  
Tommy finds his feet and staggers until he’s collapsed right up against Lovett, arms wrapped tight around him, face right where he can bury it in Lovett’s neck. He breathes a shuddering breath against his pulse point, Right where Lovett’s scar is, a token from a near miss in his own games.

Lovett has a usual quip he throws out at parties and on shows about how the other tributes were not angry that the throwing knife didn’t kill him as much as they were furious that it didn’t take out his voice box. Lovett made it through his games using his voice. He had gone off on his own, and kept a running commentary about everything from the choice of arena decor to self-deprecating comments. Taking the momentum of his interview where he played off the host, and running with it to the point he was receiving gifts from sponsors that appreciated his monologuing- his witticism and quirky demeanor. Tommy had been nineteen at the time, watching this scrawny kid go through a strategy of appealing directly to the audience, not even bothering to compete physically against them, and instead choosing to fight for ratings and camera time. It was a technique he had never seen before, and when he had asked Lovett’s mentor, a morphling former victor from District Three, she had just shrugged and said it was all him.

It’s a skill that’s kept him alive after he won as well. Lovett, making himself valuable by always trapising that delicate line of controversial and exciting, without crossing it and having his tongue cut out. On nights Tommy doesn’t have nightmares about his own games, he wakes up from images of Lovett silenced as an Avox, terrifying visions without any sound.

He lets out a whimper, a slip of a cry against Lovett’s neck that comes dangerously close to a sob. Lovett’s hand rises to Tommy’s nape and he scratches right at his where is hair meets his collar in a soothing little rhythm, humming softly. This is what he’s been needing ever since the announcement of the Quarter Quell, this is why he made his wobbling way up to Lovett’s quarters instead of his own. Ever since that evelope had been opened and it was read that the tributes would come from the pool of past victors, he just needed to be somewhere he could break down, he needed to have the privacy to be scared. To not have to worry about people’s eyes on him as he took in the news that the people he came to know and loved would most likely go back- that he could go back- into the arena. That they were not safe from even their past.

They stay there for a while, Lovett curved back as Tommy presses down on him. Needing to just… feel him solid and real and alive in his arms. Finally, he lowers his hand to Tommy’s back, pressing right between his shoulder blades.

“Was Favs at the viewing party with you?” Lovett asks. Tommy can feel the vibrations from his throat against his lips.

He shakes his head, turns just enough that he can say, “I think there was a private thing he was conscripted to go to.” without muffling it into Lovett’s neck.

“Right, it’s a high price for our golden boy.”

Lovett moves them to the couch, in a faltering parody of a waltz. He drops Tommy without any kindness, then soothes it by bringing him water and sitting cross legged on the table right in front of him. He has a steaming cup in his hands, something that smells like hot chocolate. Lovett never drinks, an abstinence from making sure he’s always in control. Tommy doesn’t have that luxury, always being taken to some event or gala where the liquor flows like blood from a nicked artery.

There’s something about experiencing silence with Lovett, the man who’s meant to keep up a constant chatter, they guy who makes comments about how everyone wishes he’d shut up, who charms everyone with his jabber into wanting him to just speak more. These quiet moments are little bits of peace for them both, Tommy never having to pretend, Lovett never having to entertain.  
But peace never lasts too long in their lives. After Tommy finishes his water and collapses back into the plush cushions, Lovett breaks the silence. Saying, low and serious, “Dan’s volunteered as Gamemaker.”

He can’t say everything he means, one of the first things you learn when you move to the Capital is that everywhere you think is meant to be safe and private is anything but. Homes, bedrooms, bathrooms, every space is bugged to hell and back. Tommy knows what he’s trying to indicate anyway.

It’s a signal. A sign. A coup.

Dan is in the resistance, and him running the games… it means there’s a plan, it means Tommy has to go back.

Him, and Favs, and Tommy doesn’t know who else they will send. Ana Marie, maybe… Probably not Deray, his organizing is far more valuable outside of the arena.

The revelation that it’s not just a possibility, it’s happening, he’s going back. It hardens something in him, sobers him somewhat.

“Get some rest.” Lovett says. “I have some other people I know are involved in the Quell, I’ll ask you tomorrow if you know them.”  
Know them- know their secrets. The one thing he’s managed to keep for himself. A rolodex of leverage that could be used when the time was right, waiting. Apparently the waiting is over.

* * *

 Tommy and Favs were at a Capitol party once where someone had commented on Tommy’s games. A heavily accented, “Yours I remember, it was a distinct one,” that was said offhand and slightly muffled by the spongy cake in the speaker’s mouth. Tommy had bit back his retort behind a tight smile. Each fucking year was distinct.

It’s unheard of for someone who isn’t a Career to go to the Games from District One. It’s only happened once since the establishment of the Academies. The suspension of Volunteering was only in effect for that one Games. It had been meant to break the winning streak of District One and Two, but with Tommy’s emerging victorious anyway, that hadn’t worked out.

In truth, Tommy had accepted and expected that his death would come in the arena, and had prepared himself for it as soon as his name was called- he understood his odds. He had taken part of the Hunger Games activities in early education, the play competitions that were meant to determine which children were good candidates for the Academies, and even though Tommy was an athletic kid, always running around and ready to play with anyone and everything, he hadn’t made the cut. At the time, he hadn’t thought too hard about it, it was only later that he had painstakingly gone over those memories of spear throwing and play wrestling. It haunted him in same the way regret had gnawed at him when he was in the Tribute Center. The way the many different choices that could have determined different possibilities gave him vertigo, dizzy with the sheer amount of misjudgment he’d had about his life. After, when he was in the Remake Center, being patched up and made pretty once again, he still thought his death was only a moment or two away. He still feels like that sometimes, more than ten years later.

It was on his Victory Tour that he met Favs, a year younger than him and yet three years his senior as a Victor. He felt he could relate to him. Jon was different than the image Tommy had of him, partly due to it having been three years since he had been fully in the spotlight, and partly because none of them were who they were on the vidscreens.

Favs had been twelve when he won, a gap toothed baby with wide eyes who had gone in three years before Tommy’s own games. His was a story of virtue and purity, staying alive by earning the protection of a Career who was using him as an errand boy. It was a strategy common for the youngest tributes: endear themselves to the strongest of the bunch, stay on their good side, and hopefully they’ll receive a merciful death. Favs had been a seemingly dumb kid, scared and trusting and willing to be led anywhere. At the very end, right when the Career had been wrestling with the last tribute, Favs had pushed them both off a cliff, and it had turned out that there was some cunning behind that sweet smile. That impression of innocence never left him to the public though, and even though he’s greying at the temples now, people still pay for one grin that’s still boyish and kind.

They were simpatico in almost every way, sharing opinions on food and humor and drinking games. They only really differed drastically in their experiences of the arenas themselves. That was the one thing they could never really share, never fully empathize with.  
They were all too distinct.

* * *

Lovett was quick. Surprisingly so. He seemed to have had an actual technique when it came to running away from danger, as though he had done it before. Tommy remembered his interview, where Lovett had sat cross legged on the plush decorative chair that made him seem even smaller than he had been at fifteen. He’s filled out as he’s aged, but at the time he was gawky and had only just passed five foot three. “Honestly,” he’d told Julius, eyes sparkling with mischievousness, “I’m just happy to be in a safe place. People want to kill me here less than at home in Three.” and then after the audience laughter had died down, “I mean sure they have sharp objects and projectiles, but do they have a comment about that embarrassing thing I did when I was thirteen? Because that’s much more lethal.”

When the shot had gone off, he had sped through the trees, away from the cornucopia and the supplies, navigating his way through the maze that made up the arena that year, only slowing down to catch his breath and make some comment about how marketplaces having sales are always bloodbaths anyway.

Throughout the Games, Tommy grew to care about Lovett in that removed voyeuristic way they’ve all learned to feel for tributes broadcasted on a vidscreen. Their lives fleeting and sad like a butterfly struggling to fly with a punctured wing. It was partially for Lovett’s nature- he wasn’t able to kill with his eyes open, preferred to lure the other tributes into areas he knew were dangerous and wait- and partially just for his sheer cunning at playing to the cameras.

Tommy never actually needs to be in the Capital for the Games. He never bought in as a sponsor, and he’s not the glamorized Career that’s typically appointed to the role of a mentor. But he chooses, as much as he can choose anything, to stay and watch it live.  
There came a point in his Games where Tommy didn’t even feel remorse at killing. That blankness, just an empty and ruthless drive, still follows him everyday. Like it’s just waiting to return. Like he’ll find out it never left. So he watches, because if he can still feel pain, if his heart can still ache with each death, then he still has some remnant of his humanity. Some mimicry of the decent person he could have been.

He remembers thinking that when Lovett dies, he might actually cry, and he still hates the part of himself that still celebrates that thought.

* * *

 Tommy had actually met Lovett for the first time through Favs, after he had gone and spent most of his year in his District, in an empty house in Victor’s Village, hating how he couldn’t sleep with the sound of waves crashing against the shore, how he actually had grown used to the bustling noises of the city he’d been trapped in for the past few years. Throughout all of the miserable nights of The Capitol at least he had an idea, a fantasy of home, a hope to return to the feeling and memory of safety. Maybe that part of him that could feel settled had died in the arena so the rest of him could live.

He’d returned to The Capitol full of restless energy and with bruises of insomnia under his eyes. Jon had taken one look at him and winced, giving him a tense and pained smile before clapping him on the back in hello.

Lovett had been fresh from the Victory tour, newly seventeen and taking in everything with the same sharp eyes Tommy remembered being engaged with from through the vidscreen. He would stop talking to stare into space and laugh at himself before continuing, eyes glazed over like he was somewhere else completely. He kept biting at hangnails until they tore, and then startled when he tasted blood. It was obvious The Capitol wanted to do something with him, they had embraced him during the games, effectively adopted him into the city itself, but they didn’t have quite the angle to exploit, not yet. He caught on faster than the average Victor, but still needed a guiding hand, someone to steer him.

So they had started living together.

Tommy was gone most nights, returning only to pick at food and crash on their couch around noon, which was when Lovett would rouse. He kept waiting for Lovett to bring it up. Ask about why he was always out, why he received calls where he’d have to leave right after. Lovett never did, just stared at him, squinting out the remnants of sleep in the sunbeams of the afternoon light through their living room window and ask if he made coffee.

Tommy had learned at that point that Lovett was always asking about something, talking about something he heard, thinking something through aloud. That he never broached the subject made Tommy’s feel a pang in his chest. He didn’t know if it was anger at being pitied, or gratefulness that Lovett knew to leave this alone. Either way, that’s when Tommy started to learn how to play along with Lovett’s bits, when to push back against him versus when to amuse him. It was the first real move Tommy’s heart made towards Lovett; of course, it had then taken that as permission to just keep nudging closer.

* * *

They don’t get any special goodbyes, no last kiss before they enter the arena, or even a desperate hug before the reaping. It’ll be months before they see each other again. All they have are the bitemarks on Lovett’s thighs, the memory of his mouth going soft and so sweet against Tommy’s. A stolen night before they have to return to their own districts.

Lovett is lying next to Tommy, on his stomach with his arms curled underneath him, but with his leg stretched to tangle between Tommy’s own. Tommy’s arm is draped over his waist, thumb moving in little strokes back and forth over the soft skin of his hip. Lovett’s face is buried in the pillow except for the very top corner of his head, just one eye and a curve of a cheek exposed to the room. He looks younger than he did at sixteen in the arena. He looks so small, and there’s something in the tight corner of his gaze Tommy can’t determine.

Lovett turns to his side, the whisper of the rustling sheets complimenting the sound of his inhale, so he can move closer. Maneuvers himself so that both of their legs are entwined and his head is laying on Tommy’s chest. Lovett isn’t one for snuggling in the afterglow, he allows one arm over him at most, prefers to never be under Tommy so that he can easily back up, get out, get free. His comfort is related to how easily he can away from the bed and into open space. Now, though, he clings to Tommy’s side with one hand, the other snaking up to cup his shoulder. It can’t be comfortable, Lovett twisted to fit around him, but Tommy knows it’s not about comfort, it’s about clutching on to the one thing they can have. This is Lovett, blasé composure abandoned and letting himself be desperate, hanging on to Tommy before they have to part.

“Julius is retiring next year,” he murmurs into Tommy’s chest.

Tommy doesn’t know what to do with that information. He’ll probably be dead next year, if his plan to blackmail the other District One Victors works and he’s able to Volunteer without challenge.

Then quieter, “They offered me up to be his replacement.”

Tommy doesn’t say anything, just tightens his hold around Lovett. Images of him plastering on his worst, most grotesque smile as he interviews tributes fill Tommy’s head. Like when he’s hosting gigs he hates, but never complains about because he knows he would never prefer the alternative. He normally finds ways around full on insulting the jobs he gets, rants instead about the decorations or the table spread, something innocuous enough that he isn’t punished, but still tempestuous enough that it allows him to let all of the steam in his head out into the open air. Taking over Flickerman’s position would mean he would have to hold his tongue about everything. He’d be a Capitol puppet. Completely under their control, and meant to entertain every night. Keep a wide smile on while asking children about their imminent deaths.

Lovett is good with kids. He’s the mentor for District Three and Tommy’s seen him try every year to keep his tributes alive. Seen him try to make them laugh even as they mourn for their own impending deaths. Has seen him wink and sneak an extra roll into their packs on interview day. Has held him on the days they die, every year. “It- it might not-” Tommy doesn’t know how to say _‘it might not come to that. Not if this plan works. If we save The Mockingjay, if we set a full on rebellion aflame , the games would be over. You could be free.’_ Not in this room, where they could fill a library with words they purposely haven’t said.

The other male Victor from Three is a sixty year old weapons expert. He breathes through a handheld respirator due to many years of smoke inhalation in the factories. Between the two of them, Lovett would seem the more viable option, but no matter how he’s filled out his arms with muscle, he’s still that kid who came from the stacked village where they make game sims and holograms. Still the kid who couldn’t bring himself to kill the other tributes directly. Still the tribute that covered his mouth to stifle the sobs as he tricked another tribute into the part of the maze that set fire to anyone who entered it.

Lovett is always the one who calculate the odds more than Tommy. All this time, there was some fluttering of hope in Tommy’s stomach, that Lovett could escape the reaping. That Tommy could sneak him into his room for one last night before the Quell and say goodbye in the way he wishes. Now, Tommy feels that same hope claw at his throat, choking him. Lovett knows that the chance they have for this to work is slim, that the best possible outcome is getting the symbol of rebellion out of the arena, even if they all have to perish for it to happen. If the best case scenario didn’t work out, then Tommy would still be dead, and everything else would just… continue on without him. Death is the only option for Tommy, regardless of the outcome. To Lovett, there are two options, be slaughtered in the arena, or go peacefully after entertaining throngs of people with the pageantry of the death throes of children. Of course he would choose the former.

Tommy wants to argue, wants to wrap himself around Lovett and protect him from anything and everything that wants to hurt him. He wants to make Lovett go to District Three where he could meet someone else and be happy in Victor’s Village. Wants to marry him, and take him sailing on a boat that he would hate, laugh at his pursed perturbed pout. But he can’t. Ever since their names had come out of those bowls, they’ve had no choice as to how they’ve lived, all they get is this: a chance to decide how they’ll die. He’s not going to take that choice away from him.

* * *

Tommy has had lovers who liked to lick connections between his freckles like they’re making constellations. He has been bitten and scratched in their fits of passion. His first time with Lovett, when he was twenty and angry and strung out on too much publicity, had been the surprising opposite of all of that.

Lovett had been angry in that way of his where he doesn’t even let it out. Lets his shoulders just hunch up and his back become more and more curved with tension. Tommy still doesn’t know what had set him off, he had walked into his quarters after a gala, just wanting company, some actual authentic connection.

If he had been asked, Tommy would deny ever thinking of kissing Lovett at all. But privately his thoughts had drifted that way to imagine him quick with his mouth and free with his teeth. And Lovett can kiss like that occasionally, can be challenging and playful and pushy in a way that always pushes Tommy out of his own head and into the moment happening between them. But that first night, their kisses had been gentle, almost chaste. Lovett had clutched his own forearms, not reaching out to touch Tommy at all. Letting him take all control. Only whispering _yes yes_ and once the beginning of _please_ before he had swallowed it, looking into Tommy’s eyes and saying instead _whatever you want_. He had let Tommy lean over him that night, encasing him in his arms and responding so sweetly to anything Tommy wanted, extending his neck when Tommy moved down to kiss the line of the tendon there, stretching up into his hand when Tommy circled his cock. Lovett isn’t typically easy, but that first time, he seemed to be trying to make an effort to be pliant and sweet. Only moving his hands to touch him when he had cradled Tommy’s face as he had started crying.

Tommy’d turned them over, his hands on Lovett’s hips and Lovett nestled between his legs and Lovett had started to kiss his way down, stopping when Tommy flinched, when it started to feel too much like other nights with other partners. Lovett took his hand, squeezing gently, not moving downward again until Tommy squeezed back reassurance.

Afterwards, he laid on top of Tommy, stroking- of all the fucking places- the sparse hair of his eyebrows with his thumbs. Making comments about his day, remarking on the color of this terrible dress he saw, rambling on until Tommy reached up to kiss him again.

Often, he’s meant to be consumed. A pretty thing to be owned for a night. Worshipped as an extension of the buyer’s wealth and power. A symbol, even at his most bare. There’s comfort in it, in removing personhood from himself, embracing himself as a product, as whatever The Capitol wants him to be. That night Lovett reminded him of the worst kind of memory. Gave him a night of autonomy and then gave it him again and again, until he knew when to push back against Tommy’s hands, where it was safe to kiss, which parts of Tommy’s body he could reclaim as _theirs_. Tommy tries his hardest to give Lovett the same sense of safety, lets him be as prickly and uncharming as he can. As monstrous as he wants. Tries to remind him that he can be a full person. Multifaceted, with parts he doesn’t need to hide from him the same way he hides it from the public.

Together they’ve built a little haven in the moments between them. Perhaps that’s what Tommy grieves for the most when he Volunteers, when he sees Lovett Volunteer in the viewscreen later. That little sense of safety.

* * *

There’s something extra cruel, in Tommy’s opinion, about the arena being almost exactly like it could be from his district. A salty shore lined with stones that lead into thick, tall trees. The ground is littered with fallen orange leaves that crunch dangerously wherever they step, making childhood memories of crunching autumn foliage under his feet now a idea of terror.

There had been something almost kind about Tommy’s games taking place in a ruined city. Among crumbled buildings of strange architecture and its dusty desert climate, it had been alien to him. Something so incredibly unsettling and unfamiliar that when he left, he didn’t have to be reminded of it so often like some of the other victors.

As it is now, he’s almost glad he’ll never see his childhood shore again, because he doesn’t think he could stomach it, doesn’t think he could look into the ocean without seeing blood in the water from the slit throat of a former friend.

Favs and him had gone off into the forest as soon as they found each other and the Mockingjay. Making sure she was protected while trying to make it seems like just a usual alliance. He hadn’t seen Lovett in the sky that night, but with each subsequent cannon shot fired during the day, his heart stops in a moment of _what if_.

They had trekked back to the shore. The cornucopia out in the ocean where they had been dropped into the freezing water. It wasn’t cold enough to leave them immobile or cramped their muscles, but it was crisp enough that Tommy had been shivering even throughout the night. The chill making it so the dampness never left his suit. The supplies had been ransacked, but the sacks were still there, they could rip them to make blankets.

The thing about the games, in Tommy’s experience, is that Victors never rely on instinct. If this were just the wild, just nature, instinct would serve well, but in the arena, instinct leads to death. There’s an edge to be found in remembering there’s a design to everything. A purpose to why that fire happened right then, what it was leading them towards, why that tree fell and cut off their path. Victors never forgot that there was someone watching, engineering every part of this experience.

So when he saw Lovett flanked by Ana Marie (and her axe), he didn’t lose his mind and run to him in blind relief. He made himself stop. There was something to be played here. He could go and make a romantic gesture, take him in his arms like a hero in a dashing fairytale, effectively revealing their relationship, and maybe give sponsors another reason to support them. He could pretend to keep it platonic, cordial, just two friends finding each other again in the arena. How would this play to the cameras?

In the end, he goes against his brain, still spinning different scenarios. Favs had screamed out “Lo!” before Tommy had even decided on a plan of action, already going forth to give him a hug. It was Lovett’s grumble about being enveloped in someone’s arms that made Tommy snap out of it. Made him just say, fuck it. He makes the conscious decision to go with his instincts.

Lovett seems to be operating on the same frequency, immediately taking Tommy’s hand as Tommy circles an arm around him, and presses his mouth to the tuft of curls at the top of his head, closing his eyes and breathing him in. Lovett presses their hands to his chest, right above his heart, and Tommy can feel how his suit is also a little damp. It’s not the extravagant act that would inspire stories about doomed lovers, but it’s real. It’s them. Maybe that’s their blessing for choosing this way, they can act and be themselves, because who are they looking to impress now?

When Lovett says something under his breath, Tommy knows Lovett knows that no matter how quietly it’s uttered, it will be heard throughout the districts, no matter that it was meant to be said under the illusion of privacy. “Thank god we found you, maybe I’ll actually get warm tonight, these two suck at cuddling." Tommy knows that even though others are chuckling along with him, the comment wasn’t made for them, the intended audience is him and him alone.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much to [maddie](http://everyonewillsee.tumblr.com) and [santtu](http://trailsofpaper.tumblr.com) for looking this over and whipping it into shape. 
> 
> my [tumblr](https://extendedscreeching.tumblr.com) is here if you want to scream about aus with me
> 
> kudos and comments are appreciated and loved


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